First win still eludes Lady Batters
WIN NUMBER one will have to wait—at least until the next season.
The Ateneo Lady Batters lost all their games in the second round, en route to a last place finish in the UAAP Season 70 Softball Championships.
A season-ending loss to the University of Santo Tomas last February 16 in six innings, 11-2, capped the Lady Batters' 10-game losing streak.
The day before Valentine's Day saw the Loyola softbelles absorb a beating against University of the East, 8-3, after losing against defending champions and this year's eventual runner-up Adamson University, 7-0 last February 9.
February 6 could have seen the Ateneo losing streak end as they collided against archrivals De La Salle University.
A four-run rally at the top of the sixth anchored on skipper Krissie Drilon's (II AB IS) two-run homer gave Loyola the lead, 4-2. Yet an Ateneo fielding error and a grand slam by La Salle softbelles at the bottom of the sixth with two outs crushed the hopes of the Lady Batters, and they eventually lost to La Salle, 8-6.
The start of the second round last February 2 saw Ina Yulo (I AB Comm) playing arugably one of her best games as starting pitcher for the Lady Batters. She limited eventual champions University of the Philippines to four runs—two earned—on five hits while she committed only one error in six innings throughout which UP led only by two runs, 4-2. Then came the seventh inning, in which Yulo and the rest of the Ateneo batters yielded 11 runs on 11 hits, and had two errors en route to a 15-2 beating.
The troika of coaches Rolly Malaguit, Cora Soberre, and John Abella agreed that the team needs to improve both on offense and on defense.
Co-skipper Isabel Cang (II AB Comm) echoed the coaches' claim. "Our pitching rotation was one of the problems we encountered because we had only Ina Yulo as our main pitcher and Krissie Drilon as a reliever," she said. "We also need to work on minimizing our errors, especially since most of the earned runs of our opponents came from their home runs, and irresponsible errors on our part."
The difference this season, however, was that the team only had three mercy-rule losses—against Adamson, UE, and UST, respectively.
"We went seven innings in most of our games, instead of the usual regulation games like last year. This goes to show that we have definitely improved this year from the previous seasons," Cang said.
The Lady Batters lost virtually all of their games via the mercy rule last season. Six games in Season 69 saw the Ateneo defense giving up 124 runs while only scoring seven. This season, they only gave up 95 while scoring 25.
Cang, thus, is optimistic about next season. "Our team has a lot of potential," she said. "We just need to maximize that potential by focusing on our strengths and improving on our weaknesses."
UP swept the tourney towards the championship with a 10-0 win-loss slate.